Life and such: Day Thirteen - Klamath Falls (OR) to Sonoma (CA)

Bye bye, Klamath Falls. We won't miss you terribly. Mom couldn't get her mind around how to pronounce your name anyway!

The GPS continued to take us down through OR on the less traveled roads. Yay! But it didn't last long. Suddenly we were in California. Now, I must admit that I do not always listen to my intuition. But today, I actually did. We pulled into a town where the road was under construction. I saw a long line of trucks waiting for some reason, looked at my GPS and saw that the town's streets were laid out in a grid, so I took a right and a little later took a left - and ended up at a sign saying "wait for pilot car." Grrr. I could see the end of the construction. Less than a block away. Frustrating! Frustrated! Until the woman holding the sign waved me forward! Yay! Smooth sailing after that! Oh, and another kismetical occurrence - we caught up to the previous line of traffic just as a passing lane occurred! How cool is that?!

Anyway, the drive was pretty easy and eventually led us to Route 5. And a pretty drive it was - even then. We got to experience Mt. Shasta from afar, near, and at least two sides, maybe three! And the part of Route 5 that we hit was the really twisty part through the mountain passes. Yay! Lots of curves that flashed signs saying "60 MPH Curves" and "50 MPH Curves!" Weee! It was a little like a roller coaster! Gosh, I haven't ridden one of those in a couple of years. Maybe I will carve out time to go to an amusement park this summer. Anyone interested in going with me? Hmm?

We left Route five for another foray into un-superhighway territory. Our goal, Chico, CA. My brother and his family lived there for oodles of years. And in all my visits, I only went to the Sierra Nevada Brewery once - on a Christmas Visit - and it was so crowded, I walked in and walked out again almost immediately. Not to be deterred, I decided that was where would stop and lunch on the trip.

I had sort of forgotten how huge the place was! We got in and got seated pretty quickly, despite the huge number of cars in the parking lot. Maybe a lot of people were taking a tour or something. We had a great server named Ellen who not only serves, but also plays in a band with her sisters - The Rail Flowers. I'd go listen to them! Food was good - mom and I shared a turkey sandwich with potato salad. I am not amused when a place charges to split an item. How petty. Whatever. Greed is such a great thing...I also had two sets of tasters - because they were teeny - less than 2 ozs of each beer. Enough for a taste. Though personally I prefer 4 ounces as that gives one two tastes, rather than just one.

Another reason for stopping in Chico was the opportunity to meet one of my electronic friends (people I only know through the internet). Sadly, we were unable to make it work this time.

We hit the road and I was surprised that we didn't zip right back to the freeway. In fact it took at least an hour to get back to Route 5 - and that was still too soon. I had forgotten how horrible traffic was in this part of CA. And it wasn't as bad as it could be, luckily. Ick. I hate traffic. We did, finally, get off Route 5 again and onto Route 12 which is undergoing much and long needed widening. Which made for some slow going. But again, not too terrible.

The GPS took us straight to our host's house! Yay! We kicked back and relaxed until she arrived back from her day. Lots of chatting ensued until we headed out to dinner. Where more chatting, interspersed with eating, followed. She took us to a Thai restaurant in downtown Sonoma where we feasted! Yay feasting!